The Collected Stories of Heinrich Böll

by Heinrich Böll

On opening the door, I was assailed by an unaccustomed racket. Raucous singing and caterwauling. I caught sight of naval and air-force uniforms—near our base there were a lighthouse and an air-force listening post—and the next moment I was surrounded by soldiers who directed my attention to a figure sitting slumped on a bench by the window: glassy-eyed, unseeing, and mumbling incoherent, drunken nonsense. He was from our base, a man called Wiering, normally a quite inconspicuous person who, as far as I could recall the schedule, was nowhere near due for time off. I remembered that he had been due only a few days ago and that he had sold his leave for half a packet of tobacco. I took charge of Wiering, who, without even staggering overmuch, unresistingly let himself be led away. Cadette protested her innocence and accused a few laughing antiaircraft gunners of having got him drunk.

  I handed Wiering over to his squad leader, and we agreed to try to say nothing about his absence. Then I entered the bunker, reported my success to your brother, and sat down resignedly at the phone. Kandick had risen from his chair as I came in, then sunk back on his bed; he was already snoring.

  I declined your brother’s offer to stay awake in my place and for a while sat silently across from him. My silence contained a good deal of hostility. I hated that life, and I was transferring my hatred to your brother as the wearer of a uniform, the possessor of a rank that seemed to justify that life.

  Finally he rose to head for his room, turned at the door, and said, “Don’t forget that our lives can change at any minute. Nothing is unalterable. Good night.” Perhaps he already knew that his words were soon to come true.

  VII

  Events now followed in such rapid succession that I must first sort them out in my memory if I am to keep them in the right order.

  That night I got almost no sleep. Fatigue and despair filled me like an ever-recurring, evil-tasting tide that I had to keep regurgitating; back and forth it flooded, unwilling either to retreat or to utterly engulf me.

  Just before two I was wakened by Kandick, who had relieved me at midnight, and I rode off to meet the cook and collect the cow and the sheep: an arduous enterprise accompanied by much frustration and cursing.

  It was close to five when, totally exhausted, I was able to start on my way back, and the sky was already growing light as I turned into the avenue at Cadette’s tavern. A glorious morning, no doubt, but I was too tired to notice; how pointless and totally irrelevant that grayish-pink light seemed to me as it felt its way up the gray vault of the night sky with delicate, soft rays. There is a stage of fatigue—what soldier is not familiar with it!—that is almost deadly to body and soul. One would commit murder for a single night of unbroken sleep; one is on the verge of tears from exhaustion, indifferent to everything except sleep or oblivion.

  When I stepped inside the bunker, Kandick was asleep, sprawled across the table. Even my noisy entrance failed to wake him. I simply flung myself down on my bunk and instantly fell asleep, too tired even to give Kandick a poke in the ribs; besides, I was beyond caring what happened. As far as I was concerned, anybody who liked could come and capture our base.

  When I awoke, it was midday: a steaming mess tin was on the table. Your brother was sitting beside it, calmly looking at me. He was about to open his mouth to say something to me when the phone rang. He lifted the receiver, spoke, and the next moment I saw an expression of utter astonishment on his face. Then he repeated several times: “Yes, I understand, yes …” He put down the receiver and burst out laughing.

  What had happened was this: our CO had ordered the brain of the cow that had been slaughtered that night to be fried for himself at around 11:00 a.m., had polished it off, and then suddenly been taken so violently ill that it had been necessary to rush him to the field hospital in Abbeville (incidentally, on account of chronic dyspepsia he was considered “unfit for service on the eastern front”). Your brother, being next in seniority, was put in command of the company.

  Within an hour your brother and I had to move from Larnton to Pochelet. With our scanty baggage we settled into the CO’s quarters, a nice little four-room house, and for the time being were happy to have escaped from Larnton. Two more hours were enough to make ourselves reasonably comfortable in our new quarters and to remove the baggage of the former CO. At four o’clock your brother went over to the orderly room to take charge.

  I spent the whole afternoon sitting on our little terrace with a view of the sea, reading the Kierkegaard diaries your brother had lent me.

  Since by eight o’clock he hadn’t returned, I went to bed and fell asleep at once. I was worn out by the exertions of the previous night and of the day, and the prospect of sleeping the whole night through without interruption seemed irresistible.

  The next morning I slept until nearly eight. I barely had time to wake your brother before hurrying off to the drill in which I now had to take part. For the first time in three years I had to endure the ordeal of foot drill. You can’t imagine the horror I feel to this day at having merely to write the words “position of attention,” those words that form the very foundation of Prussian drill procedure.

  At about eight-thirty your brother drove off to take over the command of two bases farther north.

  The morning dragged slowly on. At noon I was alone. I listlessly ate my meal, then dozed on my bunk, smoking cigarettes and drinking half a bottle of wine.

  Your brother’s return awakened me; I heard him come in, go to his room, throw down his belt. Shortly after that he called me in.

  He seemed tired and annoyed and at once asked me for a cigarette. We sat facing each other in armchairs, and after a few puffs he surprised me by pulling out a bottle of wine from under the table. He took two glasses from a cupboard, opened the bottle, and poured. We touched glasses and drank.

  “Listen,” he said finally, after we had sat in silence for a few minutes. “There are people who are born to polish boots. A perfectly unobjectionable, dignified occupation. Perhaps you were not born for that, I don’t know. On the other hand, I don’t want anyone else around me but you. I think we will be able to talk in greater privacy and at greater length and less in innuendoes. Because I want to do something, understand? Not only talk. We have to do something, understand?”

  I nodded, although I wasn’t very clear about what he meant.

  “So,” he went on, “it’ll be best if we share the boot polishing. Right? One day I do yours and mine, the next you do yours and mine. Is that a deal? Apart from that, you will be on duty in the mornings and have the afternoons off, to which a CO’s orderly is entitled. We won’t infringe on any regulations. And there’s another thing you’ll have to take over, something I simply can’t do: the cooking.”

  I gave him a long look. “I have a counterproposal,” I said. “Each of us will polish his own boots. I’ll be glad to do the cooking and collect our rations.”

  “Splendid,” he cried, “splendid! A good idea. Thanks very much.” He shook my hand, raised his glass to me, I raised mine to him. Then he suddenly stood up, walked toward the big portrait of Hitler that hung on the end wall of the room—an ostentatious affair in a heavy gilt frame—and without a word turned it back to front. His hand was still on the frame when the door opened and Schnecker stood on the threshold.

  I jumped to my feet, as stipulated. Schnecker looked first at me, then at your brother, who had meanwhile moved back to the table. Then Schnecker said to me in a low voice, “Leave us, please.”

  I walked to the door, saluted, and left the room.

  With heavy steps I walked along the corridor, listening intently, but there was nothing to be heard yet, and I supposed he was waiting for my footsteps to die away. I left the house, but walked around to the rear and lay down in the garden under the open window. There was still no sound.

  “Well, then,” Captain Schnecker finally said in a calm voice—he had apparently gone over to the wall and turned the picture back to its proper position—“let’s begin by correcting this childishness.”

 
“May I ask you,” said your brother, his voice just as calm, “whether this is my own living room and whether there is any regulation requiring officers to have portraits of the Führer in their home?”

  “No.”

  I could hear your brother walking over to the wall, and I knew he was turning the picture around again.

  “Good,” said the captain, “excellent. But with your indisputable intelligence it must be clear to you that there is not much room for doubt when in the presence of his subordinate an officer displays loathing for the portrait of his supreme commander.”

  “Wrong, my friend. All I loathe is the frame. You know quite well how sensitive I am when it comes to art, and to me it is outright blasphemy to frame the portrait of our modest, simple, soldierly Führer—who has said he won’t take off his soldier’s tunic as long as the war lasts—to stick his portrait in such a garish frame: to me that’s an insult to his person. And, after all, the Führer is also an artist.”

  “You’re as strong as ever in syntax, it seems.”

  “Stronger, I hope. I’ve had plenty of time to practice. You fellows saw to that.”

  They both fell silent, and I knew that your brother was standing there, his hands clasped behind his back, calmly looking Schnecker in the eye.

  “Listen to me carefully,” Schnecker resumed. “I have been at great pains to clear your name with the regiment and to see that the old affair is forgotten and you’re put in command here. That sissy will probably be spending six months in the hospital again and then go on leave and arrive back here with a brand-new stomach ulcer. There were some nasty types who would have liked to see you take orders from a junior lieutenant. I prevented that.”

  “I wouldn’t have cared.”

  “Why do you think I did that for you?”

  “To set a trap for me.”

  The captain gave a devilish laugh. “There couldn’t have been any better trap for you than the mousetrap of Larnton! You could have grown old there. But no”—he raised his voice—“you can’t think of anything better to do, on the very first day, the very first day, than to send in almost word for word the same report that was the original reason for your being found unfit to command a company. You can think of nothing better to do than worry about margarine, bread, and sugar for your men. It really does look as if you were out to create difficulties.”

  “I can’t think of anything more important here than the bread, margarine, and sugar for my men. Unfortunately I cannot improve the fortifications at my own expense. That would probably be the next priority.”

  “You are simply making yourself ridiculous. And, furthermore, on the very first day, another of your requests to be transferred to Russia. Don’t worry—the Russian front still needs so many officers that your turn will come.”

  “What are you going to do with my report about the rations?” your brother asked quietly.

  “I shall tear it up.”

  “No, you won’t!” your brother shouted, and I could hear them moving toward each other.

  “Then I’ll wipe my ass with it!” shouted the captain furiously.

  “Here”—there was a brief pause—“here,” he cried again, “look at this, read this scrap of paper. It was found yesterday on a carrier pigeon shot down in the sector of our first company. ‘The morale of the troops is bad, and the troops are hungry.’ Needless to say, it is extremely flattering for me as battalion commander, in the eyes of the regiment and the division, when a carrier pigeon that must have been released in my sector bears a message of that kind. That is indeed extremely flattering, and on top of that you also produce your idiotic report that”—he gave his voice a sarcastic undertone and was obviously quoting—“the troops believe they are constantly being done out of small but regular quantities of fat, sugar, and bread; that the quartermaster sergeants declared that, on the basis of the quantities they received, they were simply unable to issue the prescribed rations; and that”—his voice became shrill—“this naturally served further to undermine the low morale of the quartermaster sergeants, for where there was an actual shortage of one ounce it was easy enough to pilfer two ounces. Oh, all that’s just great for me!”

  “The question is whether it’s untrue.” Your brother’s voice was calm again.

  “Untrue! We’re not here to seek the truth, which anyway doesn’t exist. We’re here to win the war.”

  “And apparently that can only be done by constantly gypping hungry soldiers, right?”

  This was followed by a terrible silence, and they must have moved even closer together.

  “I daresay you believe,” came Schnecker’s hoarse voice at last, “that I am eating your men’s margarine and sugar myself, don’t you?”

  Your brother said nothing.

  “Do you believe that? I said, Do you believe that?” His voice seemed to be exploding with rage.

  “Not directly, of course.”

  “Indirectly, then—right?”

  “Now you listen to me.” Your brother’s voice was very calm. “This paymaster is not only a fool, he’s also a bastard. You wouldn’t deny that?”

  “Of course not. But there’s no way I can get rid of the fellow.”

  “You don’t have to. You just have to make him watch his step. And you can’t do that, of course, because you depend on him for your extra supplies of booze, to which, of course, you’re not entitled either. You see, you need to get drunk every day. I know—on a captain’s pay one can get good and drunk three times a month at the most—I know that too. And then, of course, you need women. You’re a good-looking fellow, a ladies’ man, as they say. There you are, then. There’s no way you can get at the paymaster. Those fellows are businessmen; in other words they’ve covered themselves in every possible direction. And you know I’m right, don’t you?”

  The terrible part was that I couldn’t see anything, and now I couldn’t hear anything either, and at that moment, lying out there under the window sill, I realized that eavesdropping is horrible.

  What was Schnecker doing, for God’s sake? Was he sitting there slumped in his chair, or was he standing, pistol in hand, ready to shoot your brother at any moment? I lay there as if dead, not daring to stir or crawl away …

  Again came your brother’s voice. “You must try to see my point,” he said. “I can’t imagine anything worse than cheating a soldier out of his rations or his sleep. After all, we in our officer’s uniforms represent the power that compels these men to submit to being killed or being bored to death. That burden is quite enough for me. I wouldn’t like the added responsibility of making them suffer more hunger than is provided for by the system.” He fell silent again; then after a while his voice continued, heavier and more somber than before. “In a way it’s too bad that I’m going to die—otherwise I’d look forward to writing a philosophical treatise on the ounce after the war.”

  Now I realized that Schnecker had been standing there grinning all the time, his arms folded. He burst into a peal of laughter, as if a pent-up flood were being released.

  “Who would have believed it?” he said in a strong, firm voice. “And from the lips of someone wearing the uniform of a German officer! Who would have believed it?” Again that ringing laughter.

  “Come now”—I could tell from his voice that he was tightening his belt and straightening up—“let’s get back to business. For all I care, the report can go to regimental headquarters. For all I care, make yourself ridiculous, make yourself a laughingstock for the sake of three ounces of margarine, for the sake of three ounces that has to be withheld. And another thing: did you have to pick the rudest bastard in the battalion for your orderly and sit here boozing with him in the afternoon while you were both still on duty?”

  Your brother was evidently looking at him in silence; then he laughed. “Oh, of course,” he said, “that’s right—it was four-thirty when you arrived. I leave it to you to file a counterreport.”

  After hearing the captain get into his car, I crawled back in
to the shelter of some nearby bushes, stood up, and hurried off toward the forest that blocked the view of the sea. Leaning against the trunk of a fir tree, I looked out over the waves as they rolled slowly in. It was very quiet, the air was soft, and there was nothing in sight but the water and the stretch of sand in front of it that was slowly, very slowly being covered by the tide; the barbed wire that had been drawn along the tide line was the only reminder of the war.

  A painful sadness, such as I had never known before, welled up in me. There is no justice, I thought; there is no such thing as an ounce. The ounce is a fiction, an ounce is nothing, and yet they say: It is an ounce! And on this nothing, on this ounce, they all grow rich. They all grow rich solely on the ounce, so it must be something, that ounce. That’s why there have to be so many poor, victimized people, because an ounce is so little and so many ounces are needed to make a rich man rich; that’s why there have to be all those millions of gray, gaunt figures obediently marching across Europe with their rifles on their backs, just so the rats can get fat on their only tasty food—the ounce. There must be vast numbers of those figures that can be stuffed into a freight car designed to hold “40 soldiers or 8 horses”—simply because the horses are bigger than the soldiers, bigger and more valuable.

  I was twenty-five at the time, sir. I was no innocent, I was a trooper like all the rest; I believed in nothing but the sausage on my bread, as we used to say, in wine and tobacco. At least, I believed that was all I believed. But where did that unutterable sadness come from, weighing down my heart like lead, paralyzing me so that I felt too tired even to put my hand in my pocket to dig out matches and cigarettes?

  I had been fifteen when the swastika was suspended like a huge black spider in the sky over Germany.

  Now I wished I could travel across the sea, far, far away to another world where there were no uniforms, no policemen, no war; but I was trapped in this cage called Europe. There was no escape: starting from this coast I could travel eastward for thousands of miles, eastward to the end of this insane continent, all the way to Vladivostok, and there would be no life anywhere.